Some people do internships and some depend on networking, but for Lillian and Anna Nickelson, the vehicle to success was a little red wagon.

At ages 8 and 4 back in 1995, Lillian and Anna began volunteering for San Rafael's Italian Street Painting Fair, ferrying cold water in their wagon to the artists painting in the hot sun. Now Anna is an event planner for San Francisco's Dolby Labs and Lillian plans events for the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville.

"From a very young age we were able to see what the back of a large-scale event looked like. So 150 and 500 people don't intimidate us at all because we are used to working with thousands," said Lillian Nickelson, who is now 26 and lives in Healdsburg.

Brilliant suns shooting yellow rays three feet long, uncanny replicas of the Mona Lisa, eyeball-scorching pop art patterns and hundreds of other paintings graced the streets of San Rafael during the two-day events for 17 years. Then the nonprofit behind Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival ran out of money in 2011, and the event shut down for two years.

Event founders Joe and Sue Carlomagno of Mill Valley are reviving the event this weekend as Italian Street Painting Marin in its traditional site, Fifth Avenue and A Street, with a $5 admission fee. Despite their full-time jobs, the sisters will once again be on hand as volunteers.

"We are excited to be coming back after two years off," said Anna Nickelson, 23, of Novato.

Anna and sister Lillian attended the first San Rafael street painting fair in 1994.

"My mom came home from the fair and said, 'You guys have to see this,' and took our whole family back to see it," Lillian Nickelson said. The two girls volunteered the next year and every year thereafter except when Lillian's college graduation ceremony was on the same date.

"It's just magical," she said. "The best part of being a wagon girl was to see the evolution of the art. To go out Saturday morning and bring the first water and see everybody mapping the faces out. Then to come back and see the eyes appear and the colors begin to pop.

"As you go through the weekend, you see these pieces of art come to life. By Sunday evening the streets are just radiating with different colors," Lillian said.

To prepare for the festival, the city repaves the street to make it smooth. The artists generally work on their paintings throughout the festival, often without stopping in the hot sun — which led to the institution of the water sisters.

As the years went by, the two took on more responsibility. "Both of us started being booth chairs when we were 14 or 15," Anna said. This year, the two of them and their mother are in charge of the main food booth, the pizza booth, the ice cream booth and the hospitality booth at the festival.

But fear not: "We're still going to do the wagon," Anna said.

She landed her job at Dolby Labs just three months after graduating from California Polytechnic State University last June.

"I had people think there was a typo on my resume because it says I started (at the fair) in 1995," she said.

Anna's job at Dolby "is not the traditional event planning," she said. "I am part of the field planning community and we plan training for engineers across the world."

Lillian's first job at the Coppola winery was as its coordinator for trade and hospitality, creating and planning private experiences for VIP guests "ranging from tours, tastings and lunch to large private dinners," she said. She was just promoted to wine club assistant manager, helping to plan and execute wine club events including dinner and dancing.

"Both of us attribute a lot of (their event planning success) to the festival, because we have had to organize and manage people and volunteers from such a young age," Anna said.

Fair co-founder Sue Carlomagno praised the sisters for their participation in the event.

"Lillian and Anna Nickelson grew up volunteering at our original street painting festival and were known to everyone as the water wagon girls. Now, mature young women with careers of their own, they've joined the Italian Street Painting Marin team," Carlomagno said in an email.

"We admire their work ethic and appreciate their dedication to community service over the years," the co-founder added. "We're fortunate indeed to have them as part of our new event team."

 What: Two-day festival; streets are paved over and artists create paintings on the street. Also includes food booths and live music. When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday Where: Fifth Avenue and A Street, San Rafael Cost: $5; children 12 and under admitted free Website: www.italianstreetpaintingmarin.org